


Always Loyal, Without Pride

by codenamecynic



Series: It came from the tumblr-verse [18]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Angst, F/M, Friendship, Grief/Mourning, Loyalty, Mabari
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-21
Updated: 2015-12-21
Packaged: 2018-05-08 05:22:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 692
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5485169
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/codenamecynic/pseuds/codenamecynic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A mabari's loyalty is forever.  (No one actually dies on screen, but warning anyway for those of you susceptible to sad pet feels.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Always Loyal, Without Pride

"You be good now," she says, and her hand is heavy on the top of his head.  It makes the dull thud against his skull like it does when it's wrapped in her armor; it's not a caress for puppies, but it's been a long time since he was so small.

He can remember then, of course, can smell it like it was yesterday.  That was before _her_ , before the scent of ash and kaddis and the tainted horde, when there were many squirming bodies just like his, and a figure he remembers as _mother_ who licked his fur and guided him to the teat.  He remembers incompleteness, knowing for fact that there was a part of him that was separate, that hadn't yet formed.  That it should grow on two legs instead of four and have no fur seemed strange, but he remembers the smell of crushed herbs that stained her hands when all was blood and darkness, and in the blood and darkness of battle, of broken shields and crushed helms, he finds her again.  She smells of it, it lingers beneath her skin, but the taint is in him too, scribbled in the margins.

He understands margins better than he does the lines they tread.  She fights with fangs that slide from sheathes at her hips, and he with the teeth the Maker gave him, and together they walk the long roads, from the snow and mountains to where the forest grows so tall that he is a pup again, scarcely knee-high.

She picks the burrs from his coat and he licks the dirt from her face and together they are one, the same, mud and blood and sweat and rain.

The city smells different this time; more smoke, a sharper tang of fear.  There is armor clanking everywhere; it swivels his ears until they ache with fullness, trying to take it all in.  He knows what they are there to fight; he can smell it above the flames, cold like old death and the anger of ages. 

She never wanted to come back here.

She doesn't smell of fear, though, his other half.  She smells of sadness, of regret, and the man - the one with a scent like leather and hot oils - does too.  He touches her once, the shell of her ear with its little golden bell, his eyes creased with lament.  "Cruel to the end."

He smells salt; her eyes are bright but she doesn't weep, resolve setting her face into stern lines that make him whine, butting his head into the hand that dangles empty at her side.

Her voice is thick, catching on sounds that tumble past her lips, not quite words but close.  "You can't come with me, boy.  Not this time."

She leaves them all, the tattooed elf, the walking stone, the archer, the man of mixed blood whose head hangs heavy beneath a crown, and takes only the ones who are already dead - she of the silver hair and elfroot poultices, the dwarf with the hammer and the flask and his own heavy scent of both failure and lament.  The dark-haired one is already gone, the one who smells of feathers.  Her absence is a stiffness in his mistress' spine, a refusal to glance behind.

"Go back," she says when he tries to follow her.  When he whines her expression crumbles and her eyes close as though in pain.  As though this hurts.  "Go  back.  Please.  Go back."

He does.

For a moment.

He is _mabari_ ; he knows where he comes from.  He's heard the stories, the songs, knows the pride of his people and walks with head held high.  The archer, the one who wears the scent of sharp metal beneath the incense in her clothes, spoke to him once about the holy Andraste, she of stone carvings and burned candles and the song, and the mabari companion who traveled at her side.  Who protected, never betrayed, never abandoned her even at the last, who fed his body to her pyre so that they need never be separated. 

Two hands, six legs, one soul.  Complete.

He can do no less. 

**Author's Note:**

> The reference to Andraste's mabari comes from this codex entry: http://dragonage.wikia.com/wiki/Codex_entry:_Andraste's_Mabari


End file.
